Ashby played 188 career NHL games, scoring 40 goals, 56 assists and 96 points. He was drafted sixth overall by the Maple Leafs in the 1975 NHL Amateur Draft. A few days after finishing the 1980–81 season which he played with the CHL Wichita Wind, Ashby and his wife, Terry, were involved in an automobile accident in British Columbia's Okanagan Valley in which their vehicle was hit head-on by a pick up truck. He died a few hours later from massive internal injuries in the hospital in Kelowna, British Columbia.